Longer lives posing new challenges

We don't eat right. We don't exercise enough. And, for a variety of reasons, we are subjected to too much daily stress. Nonetheless, our life expectancy continues to increase.

But we shouldn't push our luck.

Yes, life expectancy for people born in 1900 was under 50 years of age. Thanks to advances in medicine and public health, that rose to 68 by 1950. Today, life expectancy is 76 for men and 81 for women.

In New Jersey, the numbers are even better. Men, on average, are expected to live 77.8 years, and women 82.2 years, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research center at the University of Washington.

The Social Security Administration projects that the typical 65-year-old today will live to 83, and one in four will make it to age 90.

The recent release of life expectancy figures, by state and county, shows continuing gains in longevity. Over the past 20 years, life expectancy rose by 4.6 years for men and 2.7 years for women.

But the gains, demographically and geographically, are uneven. Women, who as recently as 1980 outlived men by an average of 7.5 years, now outlive them by only about five years.

Among women, the gap between the U.S. counties with the highest and lowest life expectancies was 8.7 years in 1989. By 2009, it had grown to 11.7 years. For men, the gap was 15.5 years.

There are other troubling indicators. The U.S. lags behind many other nations in longevity, among them such far-flung places as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Jordan and Hong Kong. Overall, we rank 37th, and are behind most Western democracies, including those with much-maligned single-payer health care systems (including the U.K. and Canada).

To be sure, the significant increase in longevity over the past two decades is worth cheering. It is attributable to a number of factors: Fewer smokers. Better surgical techniques. More effective drugs. Mandatory seat belt use. And more people taking their health seriously.

But some researchers see the trend of increased longevity in the U.S. ebbing in the not-too-distant future, thanks to Americans' generally unhealthy lifestyles, disturbingly high rates of obesity and weaknesses in preventive health care.

While a variety of initiatives are under way in schools, businesses and in government to modify our eating and exercise habits, it is unclear whether improved medical technology and drug therapies will be enough to offset casual attitudes among large segments of the population about establishing healthy lifestyles.

More needs to be done to increase incentives for healthy behavior choices and disincentives for unhealthy ones.

While we have been successful at extending life, there has been less success in extending the quality of that life in its later stages. A 2010 study in the Journal of Gerontology indicated that the period of life spent with serious illness and lack of functional mobility also has increased in the last two decades.

The study said a 20-year-old man in 1998 could be expected to live an additional 45 years without heart disease, cancer or diabetes. But that number fell to 43.8 in 2006. For women, the expected years of life without a major, serious disease fell from 49.2 years to 48 years over the last decade.

"There is substantial evidence that we have done little to date to eliminate or delay disease or the physiological changes that are linked to age," the report's authors wrote.

As individuals, we should all be trying to lead as healthy lives as possible. Businesses and government should provide incentives for doing so. Schools and parents should be educating children to the importance of healthy eating and adequate exercise. And our health care system and medical researchers should put added emphasis on not only extending life, but improving the quality of it for the increasingly aging population.

Increased longevity, while clearly a social good, also poses serious political and economic challenges that will intensify in the years ahead.

The number of people age 65 and over will double over the next 30 years, from 40 million to 80 million, and the percentage of older people in the population will increase from 13 percent to 20 percent, according to the Stanford Center of Aging.

That's a problem most of the Western democracies will have to contend with in the coming decades.

But, frankly, it's a problem those growing up 50, 100 and 200 years ago wish they had.

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Longer lives posing new challenges

We don't eat right. We don't exercise enough. And, for a variety of reasons, we are subjected to too much daily stress. Nonetheless, our life expectancy continues to increase. But we shouldn't push

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